IM 1008 Pt 3 ~ Harvest: King Blackjack Conquers The Slurries

[Sire Halfblack]

Sunner IM 1008: King Blackjack Conquers The Slurries

The Invisible Quarter
They came through the haze in wagons and carts, with wheelbarrows and even packs. They came in columns and in bands. They came together or apart but day after day, week after week they came nonetheless to dump their loads where the Guilds directed so that slowly heaps were formed as quickly as they were reduced. Charcoal, the stuff of life for Deci and shovels were dug up and backs were burdened as chimneys and flues began to glow once more and the poison smog of the old city was thickened again as the heat of industry flared. If the city could boast whole streets, near quarters, that were empty then where people did gather they came together with delight and with hope. It was as if the city had been kicked in the backside, or been dragged coughing and choking from some bog. And just as there came the precious charcoal there came too the ore.

An announcement had been made, the city’s punishment had been rescinded and the mines were carting their wares once more. It was true that the actual villages and towns were less noteworthy in their return to the fold but the mines had ever held out. Lean, hungry looking workers of ore accompanied their produce. They spat at the mention of their cousins in the wilds that were rather liking the idea of staying Eartholme. But the people did not care.

Deci had a fine image of itself as a sleek black clad youth with the sharpest of knives. Anath at least knew better. That was a very fine mask to wear, but one that the people remaining in the city might take up on a rare day off or for a night of talking about fine murder down the drinking holes or over a bowl of millet of an evening. Hereabouts anyway. So many had died or fled during the long night of The Murder that even the malcontent whiners that complained were those that actually, really, when it came right down to it, wanted to work. And ore was the city’s passion. It’s heart. It’s strength. With the mine’s restored, though that was still officially only just taking place and the fruits of the King’s Heap now arriving life was if not good, then certainly determined. Anath would have settled for less. Far less. And already he knew still those that had fled the city from The Murder were returning. Returning and intercepted by certain of his followers to make sure they did not wander to the wrong parts of Deci.

Even from the city when for a moment the smog might clear the smoke from the distant King’s Heap could be seen. A black beacon larger than any cloud standing on end and pointing like an upturned cone to the grand estates of House Majius far away. The Earl, Anath thought, should be here to see this. But the Earl was protecting his progeny. Keeping them safe. Anath hoped such did not involve too much tradition and ceremony. It was, or so he had heard absolutely the living end to get stains out of black velvet.


Hightown
She seemed on returning to the city to change entirely. Her creature moreover took something of this upon himself so that whilst on the journey south he had led, now he found himself falling in step behind her. He was rather more nervous that he was used to, though it soon became clear that he had nothing to fear. No one looked twice at his lanky limbs and butter barrel body even if such could be seen within the shapeless rags he habitually wore. This was after all a city from which it was said at last half the adventurers in the Empire seemed to come. People that only needed a few weeks on the adventuring trail, months at the most, before sprouting wings or growing claws or finding within themselves the inner light or darkness of some god or dragon. He blinked when he spied other creatures, loosely related to he. Picking through the honey heaps or manning hand carts. Fighting when they had to with Orcs and goblins for the riches to be had from such nightly soil.

They shied away when his prisoner, then his companion and now he would guess his host passed them by. She walked in the manner of the Nobility. Stiffly erect but light on her feet. Dignified but ready for sudden activity. With her light skirts sweeping to the cracked and dirty ground she seemed perhaps to float over the ground and perhaps made the more contrary by his own hungry gait he scuttled behind her.

“We spoke of..?”

She smiled without turning. “In hand. Come.”

He found himself nodding. He found himself rubbing clawed hands together as if able to wash them in the sooty air. He had brought up the matter of his purse only to be given – given – five times the amount as if it were of no consequence at all. He marvelled at the change in her, smoothing down his silage hair subconsciously when they came to a certain door well up in the heights of the city and beneath the great spire that topped the Quarter like some black wizard’s hat, mostly lost in the clouds. “Are we visiting..?”

“To some degree. This door offends me.”

So the creature dug in his claws and with two jerks yanked it free. He entered before her and listened to her directions as they scattered servants and knocked down a henchman or two.


Hightown
Bound in thin ropes and spikes that they had found wrapped about him the tall body sunk in on itself. Black steam hissed and spat from the wound in the neck so that for a moment they were unable to see the captive and when the sickly mist cleared only clothing and the bonds remained. Martin cuffed once more at the blood drying only now about his mouth whilst Everdawn tried hard not to think about the narrow blade whose point had snapped against the unlikely jut of stone that had caught the thrust between it and his hiding place. If the blow had broken the blade then what might it have done to him?

“You warned him.”

Martin nodded. He was a man of his word. Talk and the drow would have lived. But however fearful Everdawn had been with his cold winter eyes Calistan had feared someone else more. Not Husk, though he had been loyal enough there, rather of what would become of him if he stood as the betrayer. To his mind, to his thoughts, to whatever would remain or otherwise on death. “The women.” The stocky little elf mused. Everdawn rocked back on his heels where he crouched by what remained of their captive.

“Pale things? You mentioned them.” Still in his peddler garb Martin felt better with a sword in his hand. A skillet made for a surprisingly apt weapon when used from surprise and with the force of another’s hubris behind it but it simply did not have the comforting heft of his sword.

“I did. And you will not need your bow.”

Martin opened his mouth to protest but instead nodded. Everdawn was thinking again. It was no use asking the why of it. It only served at times like these to accept it. His companion did not need to question what he saw, indeed, doing so made such a vision crumble. It would remind Everdawn of where he was, not where he was also. Martin eyed up the skillet carefully. “What about my sword?”

“You’re using it so best bring it. It’s the name. Husk.” He turned to the drow girl that was not looking at what had been done. “Don’t worry about this. You will reach Thimon. Best stay away from Bildteve though.” He breathed slowly out and the air crackled with gentle frost. Toc and the odd girl were gone about their business. Calistan had been lured here. He had said nothing of use but ultimately that did not matter. The captive’s presence and subsequent execution had opened up possibilities that doing otherwise would have not. With that done, Everdawn licked his lips. One fork touching each. He breathed in. He breathed out. He drew a knife and with the point dug about in the remains of the dead drow’s accoutrements. When satisfied he hooked out a particular spike amongst many, this one serrated down one side. Not barbed, the spines went in the wrong direction. He held it up. “What does this look like?”

Martin bent to peer more closely. “A key?”

“I’m bloody glad you said that. Because I never did.”


The Deci Deadlands
The dead were fresh enough that the chest of the nearest undulated with the snakes that were feasting on the soft innards within. Drake knelt by one already discarded, touched the cavity from which the serpents had already emerged leaving bone and meat intact. They had eaten on the eyes and the tongue, and the ribs were empty so that they stood like the entrance to some cave to the underworld. The smell was not so bad, that would come, as would the ghouls and others creatures once night fell.

It had been raining for most of the day so that the ashen plains of Deci here were a slurry over the rock and clay of the land. It was hot enough that a fog hung close to the land so that the Governor steamed as he stood up once again after offering a prayer for the slain. Judging by their clothing these were not rich folk. It did not look like brigands. Indeed, the death blow had been from a rock of all things. The air did not feel of evil so much as despair.

Drake hated it.

Here he was well away from road and river. Here on the stark plains of the wilds only stunted trees grew. Years, decades even off and on of industry had left the land a dead one. Ribboned with streams that followed cuts in the rock or overflowed to make puddles or even brief lakes it was not hard for Drake to think himself in some other world, some land ravaged by evil or left hard and pure under some ultimate victory of faceless and lawful deities. People did live hereabouts for if it were anything then it was so poor as to not warrant raiders or ravagers. He was a day’s walk from the nearest village of note and was dirty from his journey.

To some degree Blackjack’s influence had touched the land as evil men came to join his stand against the Empire. Or more precisely in the safety from the law in Cheapside and the chance of idle slaughter and the riches that all knew lay hidden in the old city. Here though and for the most part what Anath had sensed as criminality was desperation. Little wood grew here. Food was hard won but for the most part people were fighting over cattle. Out here and it was all settlings, little family or other groups in a single hall or hill. Old villages and older hatreds. The people were backward and from what he had seen perhaps only a third of them were seen by Anath’s scribery at all. Curiously in the city itself Deci had ever been tamed by their pets and their animals. The keeping of a pig or chickens or other creatures. Something that focussed and something that fed them at a high feast. Something to actually, curiously, to care for.

Out here and the same was true but for starker reasons. Whether skinny beef, hardy goats or ash boars, even the slovenly bull serpents, herds were life here. Milk, meat and the produce of both. The very care for them, the status that accrued and there were not enough so that the rural filth rustled one another’s, stole and even killed for them. This was an entirely lawless land without even the benefit of a city Militia to bring a presence or reminder to the people of what there was above them. Land of absolutely no worth. Land where even had there been more herds, what would they have eaten? They had to be driven from place to secret place making the people even harder for Anath to keep track of.

And now, driven by hunger and simply with nothing else to focus on, even the more orderly rural folk were pinching, fighting for and jealously keeping close hand on their herds. Whereas in the city a man might have a pig, here the same was true but by settling and by small herd.

Drake was still shocked by the land. It was doubtless owned by someone but there was so little worth to it, and no one to work it, for the primitives out here would have to be in effect conquered, no Nobleman had the wherewithal to pour time and funds into a pit that would in consequence show no real change at all. And what he saw here was but the purer reflection of what was happening even in the rural places of note.

At least the mines were restored. So too the land but Drake had heard that the people previously ceded to Eartholme were ignoring that. They had been attracted by Eartholme and if nothing had been put in stone between they and the city, some of them were not looking kindly at being part of Deci once more.

Distantly the howl of a ghoul came across the dead air.


The North Quarter
Trouble was that he did not want to actually kill it. Which left capture, talk, eating or loving. Not necessarily in that order either. If it could understand what he would say then nothing suggested that it might be able to reply. It would undoubtedly make for good eating but there again even doing that a bit by bit would reduce any other value it had. Capture was hard since the onlooker was a bit more given to using the pointy end of a knife. And as for love? The wife would probably find out. Someone would say something. Frankly, it was such a juicy bit of gossip that the goblin would have some trouble not blurting it out himself.

“You’n much ‘andy at taming beasts, Uncle?”

Sire Berry blew out his cheeks. In point of fact he was a bit of a dabbler at bear baiting but being a pigman did not seem to coincide too closely. “Most every’ting else, Custard.” He admitted. “But yer brave goblin don’t ‘ave much of’a cause ter go taming nothing.”

“Mrs. Berry seems ter be pretty ‘appy?”

He nodded. It was true. Not quite the same thing though. There was only he and Custard here since the Stepsons were watching Stab Street as if all the hells might open up and bring terror to the place. They were strictly speaking on Blackjack’s turf and daily they had to warn off one band of miscreants or another. There were a lot of people still in Cheapside and perhaps half would fight for the Orc. More perhaps as evil men arrived at the outer gates to join in the grand stand against the Empire. The Empire that lay outside Cheapside but which was not having much success at keeping any sort of siege going. The people came and went as they pleased. To Sire Berry’s experienced and twitchy nose Cheapside was beginning to feed off the rest of the city and there was not a lot right now the city could do about it. So there the stepsons remained, whilst the worthy Sire of Deci inspected pigs with Custard who of all the brats and sprats, whelps and children of the Stab Street nests was showing the most wit.

The goblin had it in mind that the pigs could be ridden. Drunks had once ridden through Cheapside on fat old sows for a dare or a bet. Not quite so much like here but once everyone in the city had kept chickens, pigs or stranger things. Kept ‘em out of trouble, truth be told. But the pigs used in such weren’t like these beasts. These were bloody scary and their leader, he that they had called ‘Patches’, was the size of a well-built pony. And it could not talk.

“Bugger it.”

Mistaking the exclamation for a suggestion Custard opened his mouth to protest the very idea but Sire Berry had already launched himself from the window to land squarely on Patches’ shoulders.

Backwards.

There was, if only very briefly, a moment of absolute silence.


The Badlands
“Burnt, sure ‘nuff.”

The rain had passed them by and their cloaks and hats steamed in the bright sun that had emerged from the now distant clouds. It had been fierce for most of the night and so close to the Spittle the downpour had washed open the shallow graves that the pair had found only a little while before. Gideon grunted. “Magic, told you.”

Strawberry rifled the bodies turning up a few hundred grulls, a ring and other personal objects that frankly would have been found by anyone making the effort. So it had not been brigands then, nor thieves. But Gideon had known that. It was a wizard and like some of his ilk one that wore the colour of his element. Neither man was much for tracking and the bodies were bloated anyway, it had been a few days and it was a wonder ghouls or snakes had not got to them. If the rain could open their graves such would not have kept away the scavengers. “Revenge?”

“Mouths being kept shut, certainly. You known them?”

The thief shook his head. He was not particularly in his element here and he was wary around magic. But he had willingly accompanied Gideon on the trek anyway. “I can ask around, like?”

“Please do.” Gideon banged out his cloak then took it off entirely. Wet it weighed heavily on his shoulders. He rubbed his face with a weary hand. It had been a long night. “We need a decent tracker for this. There’s a bastard out here and these are fresh enough to be new, more dead from what we’d heard.” Then he suggested they return to Forgetown. There were things to be seen to and for now little they could do here.


Forgetown
She rode into the town atop a beast whose forelimbs were twice the length of the rear. All hung with ribbons, feathers, bells and discs of worked wood the beast was twice the height of a man at the shoulder and walked with a swaying gait so that the woman in the high seat upon it creaked from one side to the next. An Alfari, she wore an ornate headdress that flared more feathers in a fan about her face like some tribal halo. Her skirts and top were richly embroidered. Walking either side were her escort, more Alfar and these arrayed for war. The small procession brought the main drag to a halt in its wake as the bustle died and the travellers stared. They were used to odd, but there was little that could be called grand in the town that prided itself on its serviceability. Even the temple to the Forge was a triumph of function over form and whilst impressive could hardly be called beautiful.

The beast of burden came to a rest when one man came from a simple looking shrine, clapping his hands together and calling a halloo.

“Tirack?”

“Indeed, lady. It is a pleasure to see you Minnow. Gideon will return soon I am sure, a matter of good will and good deeds I am sure. Meanwhile I would be honoured if you would accept my hospitality?” He grinned. “Your escort too, certainly!”

Soon the beast was chewing on some of the heavy roots borrowed from the nearest carter and the visitor was ensconced within the simple, albeit pleasant shrine. A hospice in a more practical sense the only occupant scuttled out flexing a hand that been previously crushed under a cartwheel and Tirack offered Winnow his very best chair. She looked about the room with a little smile. In baskets lining three walls were clay pots and crocks all sealed with local lead. Food for the coming celebrations, it was explained to her. Leather jacks of spirits were stacked in a small pyramid by the altar, an altar that was still covered in the fishskin cloth Tirack used to protect it from the stains of his more practical work. “Celebrations?”

“Oh yes, Minnow. Celebrations indeed!” He clapped his hands together. “There are such a lot of people out along river and road that wish a little faith, and many that really ought to be married.”

“Under your own faith?”

“As they prefer.” Her host shrugged and added a grin. He was not particular about the need for some local godlet to be added or a spirit to be named. Married was married. And there were those that wanted things done properly for there had been no decent travelling preacher for many years. Besides which out here, curiously, marriage was a business action as much as a religious one. Herds and other animals were not so much owned as contested right about now, but those given as part of a dowry seemed to be about as legal as one could make it. That and sthingys, tools and bows, though these were considerably more common. “I have brought a dowry, of course.”

“Oh no, that was not my intention at all. Please forgive me for even implying that. No, you see, in a few weeks I’ve let it be known that there will be a festival of joining. A big one. Rather than me having to go around to them and Goddess only knows where half of them are,” he laughed, “they’re coming here. Seems like it will be popular.”

“Oh, you are generous.”

“Funny thing.” He coughed. “Being a marriage maker is quite, um, profitable.” It was too. Tirack suspected he was about to become at least a little bit rich. Easier than nicking stuff too. People even thanked you for it, which was a first. Unlike the moody so-and-so’s that were sitting in the temple of the Forge right now. As about the nearest Forgetown could boast to a local dignitary at the moment Tirack had been dragged from his warm bed that morning to see to the new arrivals. A round dozen sullen visitors that had said nothing apart from to nod when he had asked if they were being cared for. They were still there too as far as Tirack knew. Lined up like statues in the temple. Bronze statues to be precise. Bronze from the tips of their crudely made hair to the toes of their blunt feet. He hoped they would not rust, but supposed that being made of metal they were probably in the right place to weather such within some equanimity.


The Slurries
The Stickman was old and nasty. His wrinkled features were tough as boiled leather and his eyes were as piercing as a black arrow. He walked the Slurries, occasionally stopping in seeming thought to inspect a certain corner or touch a certain cobblestone. Wagons heavy with charcoal and ore rumbled by. Dirty vagrants from Cheapside crept up only to turn away when they came too close. One clever killer even got within a knife strike before detonating so savagely that small, charred pieces of him sparkling with a hundred hues rained down three streets away.

Finally satisfied the old creature went down a certain alley and did not emerge from the other side. Much to the confusion and unknowing fortune of those laying in wait for him at the other end.

A fortune they only shortly enjoyed when six hundred pounds and about fifty of goblin slapped them to the nearest walls like fish cast from the net. Holding tight to his best hat, Sire Berry shouted an apology but he was already out of earshot.


Hightown
It stank of piss.

This was not entirely unexpected since having wrapped rags about their faces soaked in precisely that everything did. Martin was trying hard not to breath too hard even as his lungs demanded precisely that. The spun doorway might have been open but still it had boasted a lock and into that Everdawn had turned the little spike. Above them and within the webs a certain stillness had come so that now the silver spiders seemed to tremble rather than scuttle. “Can you walk?”

Everdawn grunted. One hand was tight over his bowels where the javelin had entered and there was a long slash of ice across the floor from where he had torn it out. They had been attacked but the drow had been slow to react. A guard in glittering mail unused to battle through long fear towards they and their master. The depths of the city were a place of old fears and despair, misery and servitude. No one opposed Husk. Their blades had not been wetted in more than a year. Still that smoke was upon them too and Everdawn was having a little trouble staying where his body so clearly was. He was curled in his mound. He was ducking through corridors. He was finding height even as he stood on the edge of a cliff, a canyon rather whose far side he could see and where with map in hand he had come to an elemental bridge through wards whose power could strike dead anything less than a Spirit of a Realm. Everdawn waited as if watching for someone else to cross. “I think I can make it. It’s only moments yet before the year dies. We can cross then, the bridge will not fail.”

Martin heaved his friend up. He was feeling somewhat sick and somewhat in need of a good squat down in a sheltered glade with some nice soft leaves. His sword tip he held before them both but it was blurred along the edges. Everdawn on his feet the ranger passed a hand before his eyes as if to clear them and his fingers left trails across his vision. He shook his head but the movement always seemed slightly ahead of the action. For no good reason he was dreadfully aware of his teeth. There seemed to be too many. He breathed out through the rags over his mouth and resisted the strong impulse to tear them free and retch. When he walked forward he had no real sensation of his feet at all and as if walking on a narrow plank placed each carefully before him. Ahead and the webs were beautiful. Lines that ran like little streams of water, perfectly straight yet bent in the middle. “I’m not sure I like this.” Someone said and it was a moment before Martin realised it was him.

Everdawn however seemed less affected now. Other than the stark wound just above his nethers the winter elf managed to walk forward. “We… go through here. I’m not looking forward to bathing the map in drow essence. Probably won’t be too hard to find. Best not here though. ”

“Everdawn?”

“Hello? Yes?”

“I can’t find my nose.”

“Calm down. It’s the musk.” He did not add that this was pretty much how he felt on a good day. His dragon sight was serving them admirably and there was a reason he could sit on his mound of treasure and just look at it all day. “Just wait until we find out about the mind flayers.” Everdawn packed his wound with a putty like salve and tightened his belt over it.

“I can kill mind flayers.”

“Yes but not today. They’re here now. Just that we aren’t. As it were. Another day? Us at all?” He eased aside a few strands of the webs to where the path lay and stood aside as Martin stormed forward, determined and now angry. “Do you understand?”

The ranger did. He really did. And he did not like it one bit. Everdawn was as affected as he by the musk, just that the effect of the musk was something the elf was used to now he saw it for what it was. Martin had had quite enough. Webs got in his way so he hacked them free and closed his eyes against the really interesting confetti he thus made.

“I have a sword!”

“Indeed. But you’d be having a rare old time of it with a bow.” Then the elf swore and his hand went back to his shoulder. When he cast it forward a javelin of ice streaked across the gloom. Martin watched in snap into the darkness and heard a muffled scream. Everdawn did it again before Martin had time to ask him to do just that. Then deep within himself a voice started to scream that he was in the middle of a fight and someone else was doing all the work. Martin roared and comforted by the weight of his sword followed the helpful guides provided by the streaks of ice to charge forward.

*

Her situation seemed not much improved but Talath suspected that it was as much choice as circumstance. Of about an age with Troy outwardly he knew full well that she must be older for it was a bare hundred years since she had briefly been part of a ruling triumvirate and during which she had gained her common name from the then Hundred. The restoration of such Guilds had brought a resurrection of certain old fears and there was a reason they had called the then young woman ‘Agony’.

Her curious little homunculi sipped at a thimble of blood whilst curled up in her lap. Her washed out garments of brown and black matched the dusty clutter of her rooms. Her tangled braids remained as untended to as they had ever been and in a city where the Nobility were as vain as elves she would have made quite an entrance in the Spire. Had she ever visited, which she most certainly had not.

“Aunty, I thought you might like these?” ‘These’ were a selection of candied fruits brought at some expense from one of the traders accosted quietly by the Baron Throttle for that very reason. It brought a faint smile at least and something of the atmosphere in the cramped room seemed to lighten. “And perhaps ask your advice?”

“The girl?”

“No, no, that will have to wait now.” The Baron berated himself for not thinking of her help before. The old vixen probably knew as much about the old Blood as anyone and if she lived as a recluse there were doubtless those of the generations above he that remembered or had been told of her. It was no great secret that Agony was still in the city but no one spoke of her, as they did not of any still to be found who had once ruled. “You know of power?”

“Ah.”

“Quite.”


Cheapside
“DRAGON.”

The remains of the breakfast cabbage rained down on the knight. Garbed in black the somewhat fearsome presence remained erect in the saddle, his face entirely hidden by the long snout of his helmet and a twenty-foot lance held firmly in several pounds of Deci made gauntlet. Black streamers hung limply from the point and several more crossed the shield to show the knight was in mourning. The effect was a little lost on a city whose preferred hue of garment was similar, if not so starkly new. The Black Knight had for several hours now walked his horse about the lanes and alleys that should have abutted Cheapside but at no point had he managed to find a way in. No gate had presented itself though he had suffered refuse, abuse and the contents of chamber pots on a number of occasions. If he did not know better then the Black Knight would have thought himself targeted specifically against regarding such an entrance. But that would be folly. For, why, only on his ride through the Mercantile Quarter strong men had wept and stout women had sighed.

He was the Black Knight, and if he was streaked in the abuse of a Quarter then still he was the city’s champion. There had been ancient tales of the Black Knight long told and whispered over the years, if only ever since breakfast. He was the Black Knight and he had heard tell, that in this fair city, there was to be found a… “DRAGON!”

“Bugger orf!”

“Where DRAGON!” The helm tilted and received a chunk of masonry in the snout for its trouble. The sound of it rang loudly but no dent appeared. “DRAGON?”

Those that had jeered him, and there had been quite a few, had agreed there was a dragon. Further that it would eat him all up. Still more than if the Black Knight did not go away then Dirk would beat him up. No one had seen Dirk and so prepared to repel him the people had instead decided to test their aim on the Black Knight. They felt very brave out of reach of his lance.

Somewhere a gate opened, albeit in the wall of a house all hidden away so that when a mob spilled out to swarm by the Black Knight he was left to boom at them regarding the whereabouts of, predictably, the dragon. Mostly the river of people raised two fingers that were then used to tug on the brim of hat or forelock. Even when the roofs rang to the sound of heavy boots and the weak light caught crossbows and nets none of the small army actually attacked the Black Knight. As a mob they were strong, as individuals there was nothing likely to set them to such idiocy. And this was Deci, not Halgar, and here a mob was nothing but an awful lot of individuals that happened to be going in the same direction fighting not to be the ones in front.

“DRAGON?”

There was a bang of displaced air as from deep within Cheapside something immense shot across the rooftops and for a moment cast the mob into even deeper darkness. The Black Knight paused. Seemed to nod.

“Dat way! Dat way!” A fine local citizen in an immense hat bellowed. The Black Knight growled his thanks as a tusked pig ran between his mounts legs. There was the slap of hat on rump as Sire Berry was knocked half senseless and then was gone.

The Black Knight’s charger reared and turned and stormed off scattering people in all directions as the little army flowing out of Cheapside fought to get out of the way.

“DRAGON!”


The Badlands
“Killed, Master. ”

Storm blinked. He went away for a month or two and most of his followers had been hunted down, the few survivors having fled the city to where he had finally found them scattered, scared and living in a settling in the barren land well to the north of Deci. “Killed..?”

They had been hunted, caught and readily slaughtered by a band of horrid shadows that had had at them with knives. One of the few that had seen enough of it and still escaped spoke of rats. “We were chased through pigs and most of us got…” But the young man sniffed, even cuffed away a tear. Storm slapped him round the back of the head. His congregation had been slaughtered? That was not right. Deci was a place, or had been before half the city had secretly decided it was rather nice that all the childish bastards had killed one another, where evil flourished. But not to him. That was terribly wrong.

“The unworthy only. Those that held to the false god. Now defeated. Now cast down by…” He improvised quickly as he plucked at his plans. “…the Everdying Tree. Rejoice then that you,” he counted, “six, have been found worthy. You have passed the test!”

They did not seem very sure. “It was… a judgement?”

“Shadows? Rats you say? Pigs? A goblin it is rumoured in a very big hat? Indeed, fear my power!”

They did. They nodded. Storm had impressed even himself. Well now he would lead them away. Back into the wilds where people did not pass and where grubby children trying to look innocent did not have to be chased away with curses and stones.

“This way then.” And in a little line they left the remains of the settling and the bones of the former inhabitants. Into the haze where rain and the still warm sun fogged the land. Away to the holy place.


Hightown
The fear of Husk has been just that. The fat, corpulent old Drider had hardly moved when hacked, and Martin had done just that, him to handfuls of drowish flesh so that the webs had become thick with it faster than they could puff into darkness. Martin had been entirely focussed on his task, fiercely so and Everdawn had made sure that none of the piles of gemstones had interfered. Indeed, he had taken many of them hostage just in case. There was something else. Something that would follow. Something that had acted through Husk but the thought eluded Everdawn as it did now for he was tearing at the air, conjuring great gales of frozen wind under him as he tore up the abyss. He ducked and spiralled about the dozens of streets and bridges that crossed the void with Martin held close to his chest for the ranger was shaking with the after effects of the musk that had finally overcome even his preventative pissy rags.

Everdawn had carried Martin out even as he had cast handfuls of grulls to the beggars and other drow as he hurried through the corridors. When his eyes had caught those of Toc the winter elf had burst through the mob and when into the depths of the Hightown pit had dragged at his flesh for wings and wind. It was hard but there was no other way. No gradual change, nothing he could have planned for. It was the way out and so wracked still with the pain of a too swift transformation the Wyrm Everdawn had escaped.

Under what must have been the night sky covered by the poison clouds of Deci Everdawn caught at the lip of a road and heaved himself to the relative safety it offered. Martin coughed and rolled over, spilling some of the gemstones Everdawn had stuffed inside his tunic.

The ranger saw the shaking, serpentine wyrm still painfully changing before him. He remembered only fragments now but his thoughts were clearing. He turned his head when a clatter of hooves signalled the arrival of a Black Knight on a horse so large it filled his sight. A Black Knight? On a horse? In Deci? Maybe the fumes were lingering more than he realised. He hoped.

“DRAGON!”

Oh, sweet Elbereth above…


Forgetown
One hundred and seventy bundles and from across the whole Empire and another country entirely seemed a little ambitious. Though given the value of wood right now it was not a bad profit. Still a fearsome long way however and there was not enough actual wagonage in the town to have made that load even had they not had their own business to see to. It would after all take a few months, but for sixteen centuries a wagon for that whole trip..?

Put like that Gideon had to accept their point of view. They could make more treasure buying up ore and shipping it elsewhere, and over a shorter time too. It was well into dark by the time he had returned to the town and leaving Strawberry to head to the ‘Cart had decided to turn in early for once. The local Reeve was surprised therefore to find that waiting for him in his workshop was Minnow!

“I have come, husband.”

“Ahhhhh, thank the Dragons!” He felt a mess. Stacked across his counter and workbench were several leather sacks bound about with strips of hide. Very well worked too, especially for sacks. His eye alighted on the scrap of parchment noting the price of the new, extra big bed he had asked to have installed in the otherwise unused backroom. Surreptitiously he tried to bang off the mud from his boots. “So, well, good journey?”

“Agreeable. Your friend Tirack looked after me.”

“Did he now?”

“He did. And he told me all about the coming festival of joining. It is pleasing that you think so much of me to put off our own joining until such a time as I can be presented to your friends and fellow citizens.” She smiled warmly. “And on then that distant night we shall raise ourselves to the light of the new day and make children.”

“We will?” He fumbled a little. “We will! Of course we will. Many!”

Minnow rose and went to the new bed after bidding her husband a fond and fare night. Gideon watched the door shut. With a sigh he thumped a certain cupboard and his hammock flopped out ready to be strung up. Good old Tirack…

There came a knock on the door.

“We’re closed!”

But it opened anyway and Strawberry poked his head through the gap. “Boss, those bodies we found…”


The Slurries
They had swept into the Slurries, running through the alleys and lanes, laughing as they kicked in doors and dragged people out to bounce them from shoulder to filthy hand to where they might later be judged by the King. But the King was not there for the King was jumping from a rooftop to land with the crash of iron boots on badly raised shield even as crossbow bolts whipped about him. Further away and the Hang Dogs and others were driving at the shadowy defenders of the Quarter even as their King smashed a stiff looking man in the face with his best spiky club.

Blackjack laughed.

He had waited for an attack that had never come and so bored of all the sitting about he had raised the mobs, he had rallied the gangs loyal to him and with his own foul gutterpack sweeping ahead perhaps half of Cheapside had flowed out and across the Slurries. Here rows, hundreds perhaps of the city’s storehouses were already his. Only about the great Foundries and Smelting House had they met real resistance but they had swarmed that or killed it with black quarrels and now like the point of a thick spear Blackjack butchered.

The defenders had formed walls when caught and they fought pretty well as they cut at the mob or crouched behind their shields. They were streetfighter’s too but they were too few and already cut off. Blackjack gutted the nearest before pulling his falchion free to get under another shield for the thick and bloody arteries by the groin. Blackjack did not stop and the tide of his filth rolled with him as they caught the spearmen sworn to the Forge. The largest of these defenders roared like a bull as he swept a hammer about his head with great, terrible cracks that broke skulls or shattered arms. But those about him were dwindling and Blackjack laughed once more as a rope caught up the big man’s neck. The idiot stumbled and then Blackjack was on him, hacking an arm free and then dropping his orcish weapons to take the enemy’s head in both vast hands. With a wrench Blackjack broke the Forge man’s neck and tore out his throat with his specially filed teeth.

The foundries were theirs. The smelters and the industry in his hands. The city had enjoyed a month of glorious production. If they wanted more of the same then they would have to talk to him.

With no one left to kill Blackjack rounded on the mob, seeking out a face he could be bothered to recognise. “Where King’s new people, den?”

Something about a statue. Blackjack ignored it. He was hungry and Jander’s silly follower would make for a picnic at least.


The North Quarter
Sterrent stank of smoke and he looked down at the floor of the room taken over in Star Set Square whilst Moregil questioned him. He had come across a number of the Sleek in the relatively peaceful northern Quarter and they had bowed and winked in what could only be described as a mocking manner. They had even listened to his decisions regarding their priorities and certainly had taken the grulls. Then in the days following people had turned up dead. It was impossible to say if it had been them of course, but since just about all the crime that Anath perceived through his arts seemed absent from these streets and squares it was hard to think of anyone else it might have been. The Sleek of Deci it seemed either punished crime quite… extremely, or not at all. There were no scolding, beatings or exile. There were no gaols after all. They either crippled, killed or ignored. They also only listened to anyone but the Baron Throttle if they felt like it.

Sterrent had actually given himself up to the more upright figures of Moregil’s followers. He liked fire. He was captivated but it. He was not one of the destructors or burner thieves that acted for people that had to ensure that others that also had, had less. Nor did he burn out people that needed to learn respect. He just loved fire. Like so many in the city he did not have much. The affluence of the citizens was concentrated in a small number at the top. It was hard to fine people who had nothing, and the real big wigs of crime, if there were such a thing, would be guilty of far more than anything really worth such a cut to their purse.

“Keep him somewhere for now.” Moregil rose from the chair. “I will doubtless wish to speak with him again.” And to keep him safe. In truth he had asked the Sleek to crackdown on arson. Which pretty much had asked them to kill people anyway. Talath was having punishment mines built which would at least give Moregil some level of punishment to levy but Sterrent would talk if scared enough and a few weeks knowing that his life hung by a thread, that Star Set Square was his only hope, would serve to loosen his tongue.

Besides which as Moregil was reminded on entering what passed in Deci for the open air, it was market day. And the people had taken to it with a will. Here in the northern quarter they might not be rich, they might not be powerful, they might work when they could for the Guilds or scratch a living as best they were able but they did want to live. Their expectations were not high, they might only want to live their lives away from politics and fear but that did not mean they did not want to enjoy something of life too.

Indeed, if the market’s provender was poor it was at least plentiful. And with his doughty followers standing within and without the Square thievery was unlikely. Much of that being traded had been dug up from the emptier buildings, of which there were many. Indeed, if one were to spend a few months combing through the city there was a treasure trove of common articles, artefacts and simple goods to be had. The dead, of which there had been thousands in the last few years, rarely took even their simplest belongings with them to the grave. Not that there were graves. Mostly the dead were tossed into the Spittle to wash down river to Eartholme…

“Nice day.”

Moregil nodded. It was warm when it was not rainy. Indeed, the poison smog of Deci was thinnest in the Northern Quarter. The speaker was one of the beggars that came here at times. One of the Invisible kind, for there was a schism in their ranks between Kings. Of the two the Invisible Kallah that took Troy and Anath as their civic leaders were entirely the more seemly in deed, word and spirit. “You seem concerned friend?”

The beggar opened his mouth to reply but a pig the size of a small pony tore by the limits of Star Set Square pursued by a goblin.

“Aye, well.” the Kallah, Tick, scratched his nose when the chase had passed tem by. “It seems that fiend Blackjack has attacked the Slurries. Ever consider how you and yours might suffer the same one day?”


The Slurries
Drake had left the city.

Which was not what he had come here for at all. No. If he was the only one to come, if the message had been aborted, then still he was here. In this City. Which he hated. He had been waiting by the gate for the return of the Governor. Formerly his fellow Watch Captain when the troubled Drave had been in Thimon. Their leader too for a while at the Covenant. So he had waited and then the first of them had cut across his path and the sword had been out and the statue had walked through the nearest wall to cut across their path and in fright one of them had raised a bad looking knife.

But Khopesh knew fear. There were many sorts. This was the fear of what followed. There were others. Many indeed now he looked. Not ten paces away three creatures in oddly gaudy garments laughed and fingered loops of rope. So Khopesh crossed that space in steady strides to where they lurked on a soot thick outhouse roof and booted the nearest post so the whole lot collapsed about him.

Then there were knots of people all about him and all pursued by whooping others so that Khopesh stomped to where the leaders of the mob were hounding the fleeing people. Khopesh had once served in Halgar. Khopesh had known the mob there and he almost opened his mouth to speak the words he knew would placate them before he actually gazed properly at the pack.

This was not the same. They were angry. They were delighted. They had purpose but they had no union and their cause was weak. They were caught up in this attack, this rebellion, this promise of something more. They were on a side they feared but had been given the chance to give that fear to someone else. Swiftly Khopesh assessed the innocent, relatively speaking, from the aggressors and he knocked the nearest of the latter so hard that he sailed over the heads of his fellows.

The mob halted. They pushed at one another but they were individuals. Wanting to fight and kill but not to die. They were… pathetic.

Crossing between them a goblin ran, squealing, a pig hot on his heels. People blinked. Khopesh ignored it as the pursuit disappeared into an alleyway.

“No.” Khopesh announced. He took a step forward. The mob fell back. With a shout someone yelled that there was easier meat and the jumbled mass ran back and down a wide lane so that they began to jam at its mouth. Khopesh turned right after making sure those he had saved were well on their way and made a Khopesh sized hole in the wall of some sort of storehouse only to emerge three minutes later in a wide curling street the other side before the diverted mob were able to cross his new path. “I, said – no.” He reminded them.

Someone raised a club. More snatched up ox dung from the cobbles. Khopesh let his eyes sweep across them and though still powdered with the millet flour the storehouse had contained the mob once more fell back. Beyond and he saw someone dancing in the air. With sudden great strides the golem surged forward and through the guilty masses. He walked and no one raised a hand, this mob, this levy scum all leaderless and cowardly. Of that he was thankful. He was strong, was Khopesh but it would only take one man with a little leadership to raise a cry and he would be rubble by daybreak. He walked and they ran and when he came to where people were penned in a charcoal corral he broke the wall by the simple expedient of ignoring it as he walked within. On a hoist used by a foundry a body jerked, hung badly by new chains. Khopesh hacked at the heavy timbers, his sword held like an axe until the hanged man fell to the ground where others grabbed him up and fled out of the Slurries.

Too many. He needed to be in too many place but every minute he walked and fought another ten would escape. And ten would be a hundred. And a hundred two. And more. He had work to do and a golem never quailed from that.

So when the air banged and a serpent claw knocked him to the ground, Khopesh slowly picked himself up once again. A crack ran down his side. His sword bent. He looked up.

“Ah. A dra…”


Cheapside
Cheapside was far from deserted but still the sensation of emptiness was there. He knew he was being watched, if not with any dedication but rather by the sort of wary eyes that peeked from shutter or ragged drape. He had encountered indeed few on the streets but having to ask questions he had been forced to get quite forceful on two occasions and if he was skilful enough to not fear the common dregs of this city then he had the wisdom to be glad that the real nastiness of the Quarter was elsewhere. That did not concern him. Not really.

Deci might tear itself apart but even he recognised that this had become a fight between order and misrule. It might be the Deci order of Council, Noble and Hundred but it was order nonetheless, and the best of that which could be seen without the ultimate order of the grave.

Indeed, to some degree the rampaging invasion that had set off had left only two real groups remaining hereabouts. Each might be but a fraction of the people remaining in Cheapside but the rest were those that did as Cheapsiders always did, keeping themselves away from real trouble. Keeping their heads down. Just seeing out the storm in the unspoken knowledge that there had been worse before and there would be worse again but everything always passed. Whilst there was a Deci there would ever be a Cheapside. Here in these confusing lanes and shifting alleys was Deci.

The first and most dedicated of the two groups remaining was Stab Street. Each end was cleverly barricaded. Each roof was watched or weakened. People were still let in but there were rats, and people with something of the rat about them dotted along the street. Just going about their business. Looking faintly ordinary. He was not deceived. Nor too were they. But then he also knew if anyone knew anything about, well, anything, it was the rats and goblins of Stab Street. Just as he could see that their defences were all around. Just in case of eager Imperials. Just in case of drunken Blackjackists.

The second, smaller group was religious. Nervous, thin women and sly, weak men. They left gifts in a certain building, an old Guild perhaps. Stolen gifts his nose told him. And in all the city the battered old grandeur of that hall was the only place he could remember seeing not infested with snakes.

People watched him as he spoke to some rats. He was trouble. And if there was anything uniting the hundreds or more still in Cheapside it was that they wanted none of it.

Heads down. Eyes lowered.

Survive. Hope. Endure.


The Slurries
“-GON!” His visor lowered his lance smoothly swung down to join it as a ton of armoured horseflesh went into the charge. The Black Knight was only dimly aware of the mob that split about him though the crossbow bolts sticking from his shield he found a fitting accessory. Some instinct had led him away from lurking assassins, who in any case only viewed him from afar after actually looking at how long a knife was not, and he had crossed the city on his perilous quest here and there before at last following the urgent screams and pointed fingers in answer to the only question he had uttered throughout the whole of the day.

Already the strange bump in Hightown was fading from his more focussed memory. He had only dim recollections of what a ‘Dirk’ might be or why one would be ‘thingyting about’ but the ranger had seemed very keen that the person mentioned should stop the action implied and faced with such an obvious example of apple cheeked rural propriety the Black Knight had of course pulled up before skewering the rather wretched little wyrm on his lance. It had after all not been very much of a dragon.

Not like… “DRAGON!”

He rose in his stirrups.


Cheapside
In Cheapside the brittle boards of a former window blew open as something heavy burst through to land on the uneven cobbles beyond in a shower of splinters. He tore at his body where hundreds of mice were swarming him, stamping and crushing each but already scores of cuts were crossing his skin in blood. It might not kill him but it was drawing a lot of attention already and it was stealing his dignity. So before more people peered out their horrid windows he vanished to leave the frenzied mice to fall to the ground in his absence.


The Slurries
No one else would fight him. Blackjack kicked a head from its shoulders but with his blood up it barely served to assuage his lust for violence for more than a moment. Some skulkers that had been seen off. A half decent scrap with the Held about the Foundries and that was that. Bloodied to the armpit it was not enough and so he stomped to where people were being pushed forward by his closer followers to swear to the King, or die.

Sparks followed the orc’s angry boots. The Slurries had been the Poison Quarter once. Now they were, well, his.

“Too feckin’ easy.” There was no sign of that puff Drake. The false King had not been seen for weeks. What did that leave? Dirk? Anath? Talath? Well, they’d done very well making sure everything was lovely and rich again. Looked like if they wanted to keep it that way they would have to start treating King Blackjack with a little respect. “Why I ain’t gotta throne of skulls?” He asked the nearest thug. It was a very good question and one they hurried away to rectify. The King belched and picked a bit of spearman from his teeth.

There was a slight commotion as Trundleberry tore by with a giant pig on his back. Blackjack shrugged. Goblins were feckin’ odd.

*

Khopesh took his sword in both hands and spread his legs wide. Already the refugees were mostly out of the Quarter and if the enemy filth was gathering to watch the dragon put him down then at least every second he fought another life was saved. This was the Law. This was what it was to be a Watch Captain. To stand against the villainy and the horror. Khopesh took a step forward.

Braugen was as long as a short bowshot and filled the winding lane so that its flaring wings blew the refuse, soot and filth of the industrial heart of the Empire down upon him. The head was as large as a cart, blunt ended and long with eyes of black diamond glaring at the golem. Ritual sparkled there and a terrible strength. A will to level mountains. A terror to wilt Kingdoms.

“You, shall, not – pass!”

And the dragon gathered itself to swat this mouse away. Blackjack? An orc? There was but one King in Deci and that was Braugen. King Braugen returned!

The dragon rose high and then jerked. It fell chest first to the stones so that buildings cracked and dust boomed upwards. It’s great maw snapped at Khopesh but the head hit the ground with a smack that shook the Quarter. Khopesh stood a yard from its nose. Some trick?

“Da da da da da da –Dirky!”

The Black Knight’s charger seemed to skip about the scaled body. His visor was cast back to show the very pleased face of a Knight to whom the whole world could be considered one of three things. The Black Knight had remembered exactly whom he was the moment the lance had hit his favourite spot on the beast. A weakness that had ever proven his wit well directed.

“I am Khopesh.”

“Egad! Good’a’yer keep ther’a old feller a bit’a distracted, eh?” He raised a lance and arm slick to the pauldron. He looked about himself. “Wos’appenin’, eh?”

Khopesh nodded formerly and went to make sure the last of the refugees not in the hands of the little army were free. Dirk beamed mightily at the golem. He turned around in the saddle, puzzled at the crowds as they hurried away back to the Slurries on whose border he now recognised he sat. His lance and armour where the dragon’s innards had touched started to smoke. Best talk ter the chaps, he thought, they’d know wot’ad ‘appened.

Good dragon mind.

*

Both pig and goblin lay on the sides, exhausted and glaring at one another. Neither had the energy remaining to fight, gore or ride the other. Not now. The one looked at the other but equally with grudging respect.

By Alan Morgan (CI10V5)